Portfolio choices of Norwegian investors II

Primary objectives - To increase our understanding of the behavior of individual investors, and how they respond to lower cost of information - To increase our understanding of the functioning of equity markets, and how it responds to regulation - To publish several articles in top economics and finance journals - To compile a world-class household finance database - To inform the Norwegian, European and American policy debate on insider trading and on anonymity rules Secondary objectives - To increase the internationalization of Norwegian research - To create an international research group where senior and junior researchers collaborate - To produce findings that can be used for undergraduate and graduate education in Norway and elsewhere. The project has one paper accepted by the Journal of Finance, and two other papers will in the near future be distributed as working papers.

Prosjektet har bidratt til økt internasjonalisering av norsk forskning, gjennom forskningssamarbeid og forskningsreiser. Jeg tror det er gode sjanser for at prosjekter bidrar til endringer i politikk, men dette er for tidlig å si noe om.

BACKGROUND The project aims to gain substantial new insight into behavior of individual investors and the functioning of equity markets. The project builds on an earlier project led by Hvide, supported by the Norwegian Research Council 2006-2010, which accomplished an outstanding publication record, with three articles in top-3 Finance journals. KEY ELEMENTS OF PROJECT - Cutting-edge research questions - Development of a world-class database - An outstanding research team RESEARCH TOPICS Some of the topics we plan to pursue are: - Trading by employees and their family members in own-employer stock - Effect of exogenous change in information cost on equity participation - Effect of exogenous change in information cost on trading behaviour of individuals, in particular "excess trading" - Effect of anonymity rules on volatility, trading volume, and other equity market characteristics DATABASE We plan to assemble a world-class household finance database in the world that is based on data from a number of Norwegian registers. PROJECT TEAM In addition to Hvide, the project team (commitment to papers) consists of researchers from University of Chicago, Hong Kong Institute of Science and Technology, and University of Zurich, plus Ph.D. student Tom Meling from University of Bergen. PUBLICATION TARGET We aim to publish three articles in top-3 finance journals. DISSEMINATION The project group has an excellent track record in generating media interest for their research. In addition we expect interest from policy makers, in particular the Financial authorities (Finanstilsynet), the Ministry of Finance, and Oslo Bors. We also expect the project to contribute to the internationalization of Oslo Bors, though international media exposure.